On Animals and Men
True, some people BEHAVE like animals, slaughtering beautiful animals just to get sick kicks, but that does not mean that they are not, on some level, vaguely human.
Donald Trump recently made headlines when he referred to some illegal immigrants as “animals.” People like myself were predictably mortified. If you do not view your enemies as human, if you aggressively and purposefully de-humanize them, then you can do anything to them. You can separate them from their families, ripping crying children away from their parents. You can put them in holding camps were their future is uncertain and their rights non-existent. Alternately, you can put them in camps where they will be gassed, or even worse.
De-humanization was a huge tool in Hitler’s campaign against Jews. He was able to convince an entire country that the people they went to school with and worked with and socialized with weren’t human beings but rather rats, hook-nosed, rapacious parasites eating away at society from the inside.
Rather than backtrack from his description of violent illegal immigrants, Trump doubled down on it, releasing this official statement, which uses the word “animals” ten times when dealing with the gang MS-13, whose brutality is illustrated through the kinds of horror stories, ubiquitous on the websites of the terrified and angry far right, to illustrate the inconvenient truth that unless we repeal the rule of law and treat these non-white immigrant monsters like the violent animals they are, they will murder-rape your entire family while wearing Bernie Sanders masks:
checks out.
WHAT: The violent animals of MS-13 have committed heinous, violent attacks in communities across America.
Too many innocent Americans have fallen victim to the unthinkable violence of MS-13’s animals.
At the State of the Union in January 2018, President Trump brought as his guests Elizabeth Alvarado, Robert Mickens, Evelyn Rodriguez, and Freddy Cuevas, the parents of Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas. Police believe these young girls were chased down and brutally murdered by MS-13 gang members on Long Island, New York, in 2016. Suffolk County Police Commissioner stated that the “murders show a level of brutality that is close to unmatched.”
In Maryland, MS-13’s animals are accused of stabbing a man more than 100 times and then decapitating him, dismembering him, and ripping his heart out of his body. Police believe MS-13 members in Maryland also savagely beat a 15-year-old human trafficking victim. The MS-13 animals used a bat and took turns beating her nearly 30 times in total.
In Houston, Texas, two MS-13 members were charged after kidnapping and sexually assaulting one girl and murdering another. The two MS-13 animals laughed, smiled, and waved for cameras in court as they faced the charges.
New York communities have suffered tremendously from the abhorrent violence of MS-13. Nearly 40 percent of all murders in Suffolk County, New York between January 2016 and June 2017 were tied to MS-13.
In January 2017, MS-13 members were charged with killing and hacking up a teenager in Nassau County. MS-13’s animals reportedly saw the murder as a way to boost their standing in the gang. In April 2017, police believe four young men were brutally murdered by MS-13 animals on Long Island. One victim was a young man in town visiting family during an Easter week vacation. Just last month, in April 2018, MS-13 reportedly called for its members on Long Island to kill a cop for the sake of making a statement.
WHY: MS-13 is a transnational gang which follows the motto of “kill, rape, control” by committing shocking acts of violence in an attempt to instill fear and gain control.
MS-13 is a transnational gang that has brought violence, fear, and suffering to American communities. MS-13, short for Mara Salvatrucha, commits shocking acts of violence to instill fear, including machete attacks, executions, gang rape, human trafficking, and more. In their motto, the animals of MS-13 make clear their goal is to “kill, rape, control.” The gang has more than 10,000 members in the United States spreading violence and suffering.
Recent investigations have revealed MS-13 gang leaders based in El Salvador have been sending representatives into the United States illegally to connect the leaders with local gang members. These foreign-based gang leaders direct local members to become even more violent in an effort to control more territory.
President Trump’s entire Administration is working tirelessly to bring these violent animals to justice.
People who believe that the dignity and fundamental humanity of even the most violent, sociopathic criminals should be respected obviously would never support Trump or his policies. I imagine that Trump’s xenophobic base adored these words, just as they admired the make pretend toughness Trump illustrated in angrily demanding that President Obama use the phrase “Islamic Extremist Terror” when talking about the crimes of ISIS.
and not the fun rock band kind either!
The moral core of what is lazily, inaccurately and pejoratively known as “political correctness” but is really more a matter of identity politics, is that the words we use and the language that we employ is extraordinarily powerful and potent both politically and emotionally and consequently we should use great care, sensitivity and consideration in the language we employ, particularly when talking about historically oppressed minorities.
The core of “political incorrectness” (which is really just intentional cultural insensitivity masquerading as bold truth-telling) is that the words we use and the language that we employ is extraordinarily powerful and potent, both politically and emotionally, and consequently we should use great carelessness, callousness and insensitivity in the language we use when talking about historically oppressed minorities.
So the incendiary nature of the language Trump uses to describe his enemies is intentional. He wants us to see them as inhuman monsters and animals who must be destroyed at all costs, not the inveterately human product of complex social factors. This is the kind of language pro-torture people use to justify treating people in ways that civilized society find not only inhuman but savage and abhorrent.
Trump’s use of dehumanizing language doesn’t work despite being unsophisticated, brutal and simplistic but rather precisely because it’s so unsophisticated, brutal and simplistic. Words have power to harm not just the people they’re used against but also the people using them and the mere existence of “The violent animals of MS-13 have committed heinous, violent attacks in communities across America” illustrates just how dangerous and wrong they can be in the mouths and minds of Trump and his minions
Y’all know the deal: I make my living off the Patreon so please make my page Greatreon over at https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace